


Getting Too Old For This

by lokineedstherapy



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: I am so sorry for how bad this is, M/M, People actually like Tony, Pepper had a plan, Steve is Confused, Tony loves Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokineedstherapy/pseuds/lokineedstherapy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony had been successfully avoiding Steve for three years when he is ordered by SHIELD to help them ascertain what happened in a disagreement between the Captain and Dr Banner. Set five years after the Avengers movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Too Old For This

**Author's Note:**

> My first finished fanfiction, ever. I hope it's okay.
> 
> Not beta'd, so any and all mistakes are mine. Please feel free to point them out to me.
> 
> I apologise for the ending.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing

“There’s a phone call for you, sir.” The voice of JARVIS rang resonantly throughout the workshop, competing with the sound of Tony Stark welding clumsily. He pulled his visor up and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Who is it?”

“It’s Miss Potts, sir.” The computer brought data about her from the family archive up onto the screen directly in front of Tony’s face, as if he wouldn’t know who she was.

Hesitantly, Stark answered the call. “Pepper.”

“Tony, we need to talk.” Her voice cracked a little. She wasn’t expecting him to pick up. He never did anymore.

“Do we?”

“Yes, we do. Where are you? Not still at Stark Tower, I hope.”

“I’m in my workshop, working on the suit. Am I supposed to be somewhere else?” He queried, muting his microphone and asking JARVIS for his calendar.

“This is what happens when you refuse to answer the phone.” She scolded.

“I’ve nothing scheduled.”

“I didn’t have this planned either, Tony, so you can stop looking through my calendar.”

“What did I get you for your birthday this year?”

“Tony!”

“Sorry,” he muttered sarcastically, taking off his welding gear and unceremoniously dumping it on the floor. “You were saying?”

“There’s been a bit of a problem surrounding Dr Banner and Capt. Rogers.”

“There is always a problem surrounding Banner and/or Rogers. Who told you this?” He poured himself a large measure of alcohol and began up the stairs.

“Agent Hill.”

“Did she specify what type of a problem?”

“No, she just said -,”

“Sir,” JARVIS interrupted, muting Pepper. “There are two S.H.I.E.L.D agents preparing to blow out the door to the main lobby.”

Stark gulped down his drink and told JARVIS to get him a two-way video link to the door. The agents looked extremely displeased and slightly disgruntled upon finding out that SHIELD agents had been explicitly banned from entering the building, and they ordered him to meet them outside the Tower in his suit. He complied, but only begrudgingly, and only once they’d issued multiple threats: it had been a long time since he’d worn the suit. It wasn’t because it was necessarily a struggle for him to get into it, but he found it hard once he had it on to stay in it. _I’m getting too old for this,_ he thought as he tested each propulsion device in turn.

The agents at the door: Agents Hill and Day, seemed even more irked in person than Stark had originally thought. “Would you two mind telling me what this is about? I’m a busy man.”

“There was an incident concerning Dr Banner and Captain Rogers, Stark.”

“I’ve been told as much. Would you care to elaborate?”

“Dr Banner transformed into the Hulk, and it seems Rogers was the cause of the change. We are not, however, one-hundred-per cent sure what exactly happened since Rogers is refusing to talk to anyone except you, and Banner is still too volatile to have a conversation with. We need to know what was going on, Mr Stark.”

Tony glanced between the two, both looking at him somewhat expectantly. A wheezy chuckle and an eyebrow raised so high it might’ve flown off his face had it risen any more informed them he knew no more than they did. “I haven’t seen Steve in person in what, two years? How would I know anything?”

“It has been three years since you last contacted Captain Rogers, sir.” JARVIS chipped in. Agent Day jumped slightly. Apparently this was his first time dealing with Stark and his mechanical cohorts, which wasn’t surprising – he looked very young.

“So, you want me to come and talk to Cap’? You realise he doesn’t actually like me.”

Neither of the agents said anything. “Suit yourselves, then. Why do you have me in the Iron Man suit? This thing is too heavy to wear for the fun of it.”

“In case Rogers decides to start another argument, Stark.” Hill told him, “You’d only be able to hold your own with it on.”

Tony agreed reluctantly with her last statement: that much had been made very clear to him the first time he met Rogers. He closed his face-plate, the suit lighting up accordingly, and left the ground behind.

It was so much more hard work to stay steady now. It had been months since he’d flown at such an altitude, or so fast, and he was moving in anything but a straight line.

The incident zone, as closed off by S.H.I.E.L.D, was some five miles in diameter, with swathes of agents surrounding the circumference and one huge make-shift base in the very centre, which was, as JARVIS told Stark, where they were keeping Dr Banner. He landed heavily by the door and a sunglass-wearing, sombre looking man led the helmeted Stark to a control room.

The room in question was in an absolute shambles; it was cobbled together from anything they could find that was strong enough to hold. There were miles of wires looped around, draped over desks and hanging from small hooks overhead. The computer monitors looked slightly faded as they strained for enough electricity to run.

“Tony Stark.” Fury was standing on the far side of the room, looking out through a large hole in the wall. It was the ideal place to survey the goings-on of the rest of the operation.

“What, you couldn’t afford glass?”

“Have you been debriefed?” He demanded, ignoring the sarcastic jab.

“Vaguely. Agent Hill didn’t seem to want to get too specific.” Tony pulled his faceplate up roughly.

“She was under orders to be ambiguous.”

“She succeeded, but, er, you do know if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll find out for myself, right? Or have you forgotten what happened last time?” He thought he saw Fury twitch a little when he was reminded of how good a hacker Tony actually was.

“You would have been much more reluctant to come if you’d known anymore.”

“Are you going to fill in the gaps, or do I have to interrogate Banner myself?”

Fury gazed out over the scene again. “If you don’t need me I’m going to go. I have work to do and-,”

“Dr Banner and Mr Rogers were having an argument about you, Stark. Bruce has been talking to us, albeit only for short amounts of time – we don’t want to ‘push’ him. Rogers, however, is playing a little game with us. He says he will not say anything unless it is to you.” He turned to face Stark, leaning towards him until their heads were only inches apart. He resumed quietly, “Although I hate to admit it, we need you here. The Captain is distressed and we can’t afford that sort of rift between _any_ of you. If you don’t comply and talk to the man I’m afraid we’ll have to detain you until you do. This is very important. Much more important than whatever you were doing back at your fucking Tower.”

“I came here to talk to Rogers and I’m here now. If I didn’t do as I intended then that would be a waste of my valuable time, and believe me, it is very valuable.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is, Stark.”

Tony was led by the director out of the terribly messy control room, down several tarpaulin-covered hallways and out of the building into the mud that made up the rest of the zone. He was directed to a small blip on the landscape which Fury told him was once a small town.

Steve Rogers was wearing his trademark tan trousers and too-small white tee, which, Tony noted gleefully, accentuated his chest _perfectly_. He was sitting on his brown leather jacket and what looked like the remains of a plaid shirt, with his back against the fragmented wall of what was only a short time ago a bakers. The entire top floor of every single building in the town had either been taken straight off -- as with the bakers -- or collapsed in. The windows were shattered, cars overturned or damaged, and lamp-posts bent double. He was staring into space, lightly banging his head against the bricks behind him. Tony stomped past him into the remains of the bakery, dumping his helmet onto the pavement next to the Captain. He returned moments later with a bag of doughnuts and slid ungracefully down the wall.

“Hello, Captain.”

He stopped hitting his head, his eyes returning from their steady gaze into the middle distance to glare at his shoes. After a long pause, he began hesitantly. “Stark.” It didn’t seem like he had expected Tony to arrive at all.

“So. D’you mind telling me what happened?” Tony took a huge bite out of a pastry. “Doughnut?” He offered, mouth full.

“No, no thank you.” Steve opened his mouth as if to continue, but stopped himself short and continued to look at his shoes, seemingly embarrassed.

“Listen, Steve, if you’re not going to be co-operative I’m going to leave. I was-,”

“I pushed Dr Banner.”

“Really? Like, a physical push?”

“Yes.”

“Must’ve been a hard push to get him angry enough to lose control.”

“But it wasn’t… I didn’t mean it to be… I didn’t mean to do that- this.” Steve motioned dejectedly at their desolate, crumbling surroundings. “This is my fault, Tony. All of this! There are people without homes because I pushed the guy I was having an argument with. And you know what the worst part is? The worst part is knowing that is was such a pathetic, petty thing to do. Pathetic!” He shouted the last word and clambered to his feet, walking away a little. His eyes were closed, and he was rubbing his head as if he felt the start of a horrific headache.

“Come back and sit down. I’m not getting up.” Stark told him. Rogers complied, but sat a little further away. “Now, listen to me, Rogers: Dr Banner has _astonishing_ anger management issues. We all know that far too well… And I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want you to take out what the Other Guy did on yourself.”

Steve sighed heavily. “I suppose he wouldn’t. He’s a good man.”

“Uh huh. So are you.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re worth ten of me.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree.” He paused to finish his food. “I’m under the impression S.H.I.E.L.D already knows about your little physical tiff with the good doctor, they certainly know you two had an argument.”

“And you want to know what it was about.”

“You told Fury that you would fess up to me. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to file the report – I’m pretty sure Banner would be cool with that.”

“You’re too much of a diva to keep secrets.” Steve definitely hadn’t expected him to turn up.

“I’m brilliant at keeping secrets, Steve.” He shuffled closer, brandishing the brown paper bag in front of the Captain’s face. “You’ll have to trust me on that one.”

Rogers took the bag, muttering an apologetic thank you and ate two before resuming the conversation. “It started in the café, just down the street. We were sitting by the window, he was drinking tea and I coffee, and we weren’t talking. He seemed a little more on edge than usual, and it was making me slightly nervous. You know that twitch in his cheek…? No? Well, that was happening. I was eager to leave because of it, but he wasn’t at all. He told me he wanted to ask me a question, but he was really taking his time with getting to the point.”

“He hauled you all the way out here to ask you a question?”

Steve nodded. “He said he was afraid that anywhere else we’d be spied on. He’s convinced either S.H.I.E.L.D or you have spies on us.”

“He’s getting paranoid in his old age. Of course S.H.I.E.L.D is tracking us: it’s an organisation made up of and run by spies, it’s what they do. Anyway, continue.”

“He said to me ‘Do Tony and yourself get on well?’, and I replied that we do, but that I hadn’t seen you in years.”

“I was under the impression you didn’t like me.”

“Really? I, uh-,”

“You can go ahead and ignore me.”

Furrowed his brow and continued slowly, as if this was a difficult conversation to recount. “He asked me if you are… if you are a homosexual.”

Tony scoffed and raised a quizzical eyebrow at Steve. “Really? That’s what Banner was so eager to know? Pfft.”

“It’s not funny, Tony.” He pushed Stark away a little. The suit slid on the tarmac relatively easily, and the man in it wasn’t exactly resisting.

“Oh come on, you have to admit it’s pretty hilarious, Banner being so caught up about my sexuality. He could’ve just asked me.”

“This isn’t a joke -, do you want to know the story or not?!”

“Absolutely.”

“He told me: ‘I see him quite a bit. We work together frequently on projects for S.H.I.E.L.D, and so I’m at Stark Tower a lot. Pepper Potts is there most of the time, running errands for him, fetching coffee or alcohol, or trying to force him to eat something. We talk sometimes. She told me recently that she’s seen a change in Stark since you and he began to get along, and I’ve noticed it too. I was wondering, on Pepper’s behalf, if you knew why?’ I told him that I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, because I didn’t. ‘Well, I think he’s a homosexual, personally.’” He mocked Bruce’s way of speaking in the last sentence and folded his arms across his chest tightly. “‘And that’s why he’s been ignoring Pepper. She loves him, Cap’. She really does.’ He said, ‘She loves him so much that it hurts her to see him getting so beaten up all the time. Maybe it’s for the best. Pepper is in love with Tony Stark, and not Iron Man – it’s killing her to see him get smashed up in that suit – I think she needs to get away from that. I don’t think Tony has even noticed how little time he’s been spending with her lately. He’s always locked in his lab… occupied. It’s a happy coincidence for them both if he has fallen for someone else. It’s a lot less painful to let someone go than to watch them die.’” Rogers quoted, the words pouring out of his mouth and tripping over each other like he couldn’t wait to get them out and disassociate himself with them. Turns out that old man Stark hadn’t been fudging the truth when he wrote about a ‘fantastically enhanced memory’.

The Captain’s eyebrows were knitted together in the middle as he hauled a stunned Tony to his feet. Stark hadn’t realised quite how well Bruce knew him. Well enough to make an exceptionally accurate analysis of both himself and Pepper, apparently. Tony retrieved his helmet, tucking it under his arm, and they walked in silence for a couple of yards, kicking debris. Steve resumed tentatively. “‘What do you think?’ He asked me.” He seemed unduly nervous. “We left the café and I tried to get away from him so I didn’t have to answer his question, but he followed me. We were walking where we are now, in the opposite direction.”

“What _do_ you think of his theory?” Stark asked, genuinely interested to know. It surprised him – being concerned about what Steve thought – since the opinion of others usually mattered very little; Even Pepper’s when she hadn’t been so intent on bothering him whilst he worked. He really hadn’t given two fucks. But now the opinion of a ninety-nine year old man who he was sure hated him mattered, and quite a lot.

 _A ninety-nine year old absolutely perfect man_ he reminded himself, taking a second to look at Rogers properly again. He looked incredible.

“I think it’s utter codswallop, of course.” The Captain recommenced. “It is all nonsense,” there was a sudden urgency in his voice. “isn’t it? Tony?”

Tony’s mind skipped over the thinking process and launched straight into an answer. “It’s not complete nonsense. Does it really matter?”           

“Yes! It… It used to.” He started angrily and finished weakly.

“You’d think after five years someone would have filled you in a little better.”

“I know that it’s legal now, but -,”

“No ‘but’s. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay, and, heck, if Bruce wants to talk about my sexuality I could not care less.”

“You’re not offended?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Steve sank into himself a little then. “I’m not homophobic or anything.” He muttered eventually.

“Didn’t think so.” Stark affirmed. The odd pair came to a halt in a small courtyard, undoubtedly once the town square. There was a smashed water feature in the centre, spilling thick, muddy, rancid water onto the paved area. It pooled like blood. “Why did Banner’s remark upset you?” He asked, watching Steve’s face intently.

“I guess… I guess it’s because of the way I was raised. It was so different back then, Tony. So, so different. I was told that being a homosexual was an evil thing by… well, everyone! Even my best friend! And gay men were prosecuted by the law and society equally. My teachers and official people and preachers said it was a sin for a man to like a man, and that stuck with me. It makes me uncomfortable.” He stammered to a halt again, waving his hands around like he was searching for words to pluck out of the air. “You’re a good man, and I mean it, don’t look at me like that, I do.”

The earnest sincerity in the Captain’s eyes assured Tony that he genuinely felt that way. Tony liked Steve’s eyes a lot. They were blue pools of tangible emotion, and he could read them like a book.

“Stop me if I’m wrong here, but are you trying to say that I’m a good man because I’m straight?”

“No! That sounds awful! That’s not what I -,”

“That was what you were getting at, though, wasn’t it? Earlier when I had doughnuts you said that I’m a good man, that Bruce is a good man. You were assuring yourself that we’re both hetero, weren’t you?”

“Shut up, Stark.”

“But you told me you weren’t a good man so by that logic -,”

“SHUT UP!” Steve roared suddenly, cutting him off. The man laced his hands in his hair and tugged, as if he was trying to rip it out, and he walked away a few paces. Tony could see his shoulders shuddering with each deep, controlled breath he took.

 “I saw it when I was in the army, you know,” Steve resumed slowly once he had eventually calmed down, barely audible. “Some guys helped each other out. We spent a long time away from home, so they would just go into the corner of the room and…” He left Tony to extrapolate what they did.  “They were as discreet about it as they could and no-one ever mentioned it so it was okay, I could handle that. We were a team and they weren’t hurting anybody so everyone just left them alone.” Rogers span around on his heels. “What Bruce said _was_ a load of twaddle, wasn’t it?” He sounded… desperate. Desperate for the answer to be an outright denial of the idea. There was anger there too; and confusion.

Tony had to contemplate how to word this particular confession for a moment before answering. “He was almost right.” He replied finally. “I do like men, Cap’, I do like men, but I like women as well.” The armoured man took a clanging step forward. “Am I still a good man?”

In all honesty, it almost broke Tony’s heart to know that the answer to that question might be ‘no’. His childhood idol, the man his father would rather talk about than care about his son; and now his teammate and friend might legitimately think that his bisexuality makes him a bad man. _Not suggesting I’m inherently good, or anything._ He thought bitterly.

“Yes,” Rogers replied, “I think you are.”

“Good. I’m glad. I’m also glad that this conversation is over now, as I’m sure you are.” Steve nodded curtly in reply and Tony closed the gap between them to put a heavy hand on the captain’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go back to see Fury now. Don’t worry, I won’t tell them about this whole fiasco until you’ve figured your sexuality out… Hey, come on, that so was the logic you were usi-,”

The next thing Stark knew he was spread eagled on his back with a dent in his shoulder-piece pinning his arm down, his head bleeding on an unfamiliar heap of brick. His helmet clattered after him, spinning to a halt by his feet.

He sat up too fast, head spinning, and saw Steve Rogers running across the muddy fields towards the temporary S.H.I.E.L.D base. He swore loudly at the sky as the heavens opened, dumping the waters of Asgard onto the untidy scene.

 

_#_

“Why the hell did you think it was okay to just up and leave, Stark?!” Fury boomed, furious. Tony had a colossal headache from far too much alcohol and not enough sleep for the past week or so, and had been dreading the moment he finally had to succumb to Fury and accept a telling off via conference call.

“Tony? Are you alright? Please keep talking to me, Tony.” Pepper’s voice sounded intensely worried, the noise from the call echoing off the walls, causing a little feedback when the computer’s mike caught it and sent it to Fury.

“We wanted you to talk to Rogers and then _tell us_ what he said, not piss him off and leave!”

“Don’t make me talk to JARVIS! He’ll tell me what’s going on! I know the override code!” Pepper exclaimed proudly before she was thrown down off her high horse by the AI himself, who cut in on the call to inform her that Stark had changed it after he returned from talking with the Captain.

“Don’t think I won’t bench you, because I will! You need to get your ass out of that damn workshop and get to S.H.I.E.L.D so we can have a proper meeting and do the fucking paperwork, none of this Skype shit!” Fury’s voice was getting louder still.

“Tell me what happened right now Tony, or I swear I’m flying up to New York to drag you out of that workshop!” Pepper almost screeched into her phone. The pitch made him wince. “Anthony Stark!”

Tony glared at Fury resentfully, downing a particularly large measure of whiskey before quietly telling JARVIS to end the rather one-sided call with Pepper. He could see himself on the screen and by God did he look a mess. His eyes were pink, bleary and bloodshot with heavy purple marks underneath; his hair unwashed as he hadn’t left the workshop for a shower in a week; his clothes were stained, grubby and in some places rather threadbare. His entire demeanour was tired and drained, like it was an effort for him to keep his head off the desk. Fury almost felt sorry for the man. Almost.

Tony sighed heavily, trying to work up the strength to make his sentences coherent. “Fury, lishen to me.” He slurred, putting it on only a little, and gestured to himself. “Do you honeshtly think that I can do thish now?”

Fury looked a little surprised that Tony was that drunk, but didn’t comment on it. He was working up the breath for another rant when JARVIS cut the call. “I will answer any calls you receive for the next few hours, sir.” He explained as Dummy wheeled Tony in his desk chair over to the grubby cot in the corner of his filthy workshop. The little robot then dumped the genius onto said cot, letting the chair fall to the floor, and yanked the thin blanket awkwardly over him before fishing Tony’s eye mask out from under the piece of furniture. He tossed it against the wall above the drunken man, who murmured his gratitude half-heartedly to both the robot and the AI, and then curled up into the foetal position, snapping the mask lopsidedly over his face. Dummy rolled back over to his charging station and settled down; Tony heard the lights power off. _It seems the only friends I can trust are the ones I make_.

_#_

Tony woke up with a start, panicking, peering around at the gloom of the cave, hands clawing skin around the glorified pacemaker imbedded in his chest cavity, trying not to move too much in case he damaged the temperamental wiring connecting the thing in his chest to a fucking car battery.

Then he remembered that he wasn’t in Afghanistan anymore.

He pulled the mask off, flinging it into the room somewhere, and lay still to both calm down and convince himself to get up and make coffee, despite his headache.

The billionaire slid slowly off the cot, groaning at the pain in his back from spending yet another night in the unheated workshop on a horrendously over-used fold-out plinth with springs. He couldn’t remember the cause of his hangover, and muttered complaints along those lines to JARVIS.

“Would you like me to jog your memory, sir?” The AI queried.

He pulled himself over to the already-active coffee machine with little enthusiasm. “You know me too well.”

JARVIS didn’t need to recount the reasons for Tony’s drinking in the end. As he zealously gulped down the coffee, sat on top of the counter, he recalled. _You complete moron._ He admonished. _He hates you now if he didn’t already. Fucking hell._ “Where’s my whiskey?”

“There is no more whiskey in the vicinity, sir, there is however a glass of scotch under the blueprints on your desk.” JARVIS interjected.

“I knew that!” He announced more to himself than his house, as he scrambled back over to his desk to find his discarded glass.

 _This is what happens when you let yourself get emotional, Tony._ He gulped the amber liquid enthusiastically. _You get hurt._

It had taken Tony quite a while to realise that he had feelings for Steve Rogers. Not just the general ‘we’re team-mates’ or platonic feelings towards a friend, they had come relatively quickly despite being convinced that he was utterly loathed by Steve; but that he was forming a sentimental bond with the man. About the man. It was at that moment, when his emotions had reared their ugly head amongst the swirling morass of equations in his brain that he had decided to distance himself from the good Captain. That was why Rogers had never been inside Stark Tower, or the mansion. They’d fought together against Loki soon after they met, and several miscellaneous evil-doers after that, but that was where Tony had to draw the line. Eventually they lost contact altogether.

 _Three years._ He reminded himself, glancing over the horrifically messy work strewn over his desk. Drunk engineering. Great. “I’ve gone three years without seeing the man. I’ve cut him off once, I can do it again.”

“May I take the liberty to remind you, sir, that you have not stopped talking about Captain Rogers for the entirety of those three years?”

“Fuck you, JARVIS.” He whined, propelling his desk chair over to something he hadn’t been tampering with whilst drunk. “Music!”

He allowed the swathes of very loud AC/DC wash over his as he became increasingly occupied by his work, resigning to the numbers swirling behind his eyes.

“Sometimes I really curse my brain.” He resumed, some considerable time – hours – later.

“Sir?” The AI almost sighed. They had had this conversation many times before, and so he knew where it would end up.

“I have such a huge brain capacity that I can’t. Just.” The sound of a hammer on sheet metal resonated throughout the workshop. “Concentrate. On. One. Thing!” He threw the tool across the room, grunting at the exertion. “Fucking hell I am so unfit!”

He slid onto the floor once again, calling on JARVIS to dim the lights – it was much kinder on his eyes and sleep-deprivation-induced headache – and for Dummy to bring the last visible bottle of alcohol in the basement. The robot whirred quietly next to him, nudging it over carefully. “Good boy.” He mumbled.

Tony grimaced as he raised his glass. “To my most loyal – who am I kidding – My only friends, Dummy, Butterfingers, You, and JARVIS.” He poured another drink out. “I’m not very good with people. I mean, I am good with people, obviously, or I wouldn’t be quite as rich as I am now, but just not with the right people.”

“Captain Rogers, sir.”

“Yeah, ice-cap. That’s the bastard. I really like him. I really, really like him. I’ve liked him for five years, and I was doing so well with ignoring him. But _now_ I have to go through all of the shit _again_ , because it offended his fucking forties sensibilities when Bruce called me gay.” The AI stayed silent. “I was trying to avoid getting hurt, and now look what I’ve gone and done. I’m going to end up killing myself with all of this, just like Pepper keeps telling me, not sleeping and not eating and drinking until I wither away. Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

One of the robots, Tony couldn’t tell which for the low light, pulled his blanket over from the cot.  They knew just as much as he did that he wasn’t even going to be leaving the concrete tonight. “I’ve completely blown it this time.” He fell quiet, setting his glass on the floor about a foot away from him. “And I... Steve… He probably thinks I’m laughing at him, at his situation. Fuck.”

_#_

The next day Tony was woken by JARVIS at some ridiculous hour. He blinked himself awake and, upon realising that he was curled up in a blanket, stood abruptly to avoid potential embarrassment. The world was spinning around him, and he had no idea what JARVIS had actually said, but neither thing mattered to him all that much.

“Sir, I’m afraid I really must stress this.” The AI insisted that he found a chair, because this was important. “Miss Potts called very early this morning to inform you that she is concerned for your well-being and is therefore flying to New York presently.” Tony groaned in annoyance and the coffee machine leapt to life on the other side of the room. He slid over there, not leaving his seat, to make himself a mug of the stuff. JARVIS continued, “Also, Captain Rogers is currently sitting in the lobby.”

“What?!”

“He isn’t mentioned specifically on the list of people disallowed entry, sir.”

“That’s no fucking excuse! That man put a dent in my new suit!”

“If I may take the liberty to say so, sir, I think that maybe it would be beneficial for you to talk to him under somewhat less stressful circumstances.”

Tony was irritated, so he responded with a curt, “No you may not take any liberties.” but did nonetheless consider the prospect. He drank his coffee slowly whilst mulling it over, the caffeine adding to his brain activity after a while and rushing him to a decision. “Send him up here, JARVIS. I can always kick him right back out.”

It took Steve less than ten minutes to navigate his way up to the workshop, by which time Tony was hunched over an enormous circuit-board with a soldering iron in hand, blaring Black Sabbath as loudly as he could. The captain knocked on the frosted glass partition, standing sheepishly a little away from the locked door.

Tony’s music was shut off abruptly and the door swung open; JARVIS announced and welcomed Steve simultaneously. The man jumped about six inches when the AI spoke and looked around for a possible cause of the noise. “I’m assuming that was a computer.” He began once no discernible source was found.

“His name is JARVIS, he’s an AI system… that’s ‘artificial intelligence’, by the way… who did not have permission to turn off my music.”

JARVIS didn’t respond at all.

“Well fuck you too then.”

“Could I talk to you, Tony?” Rogers took a small, cautious step into the room and the door slammed shut behind him. The man jumped again, although less this time, and span around to face it. His brow furrowed in confusion. “Is it supposed to do that?”

“No, but JARVIS is insistent that I have a conversation with you, apparently.” Tony went back to his soldering. It would be easier to handle this if he wasn’t actually paying attention.

Steve, aware that he wasn’t exactly all that welcome here, stayed where he was. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I damaged the Iron Man suit. I wasn’t thinking right. I’ll be more cautious in the future.”

Stark sighed and raised an incredulous eyebrow at Steve as he dabbed the soldering iron on a damp sponge. “It’s only thousands of dollars’ worth of tech, don’t worry about it.” If Rogers didn’t catch that sarcasm Tony felt like he was going to be forced to do something drastic.

“I realise that and I apologise. It won’t happen again.”

Tony waved at him in dismissal and turned back to his circuit-board. After about thirty seconds he realised that Steve hadn’t moved. “You can go now if you’re… oh, you’re not finished talking. Great… get on with it then so I can concentrate on my work again.”

“You can tell Fury what happened now.”

“Who says I haven’t already? You punched me across a courtyard – I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for breaking that promise.”

“Agent Hill says you haven’t told anyone what happened between me and you or between me and Banner.”

“Fuck Agent Hill.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m frustrated, Steve, I’m expressing my emotions through expletives.”

“I got that. It had been seven years since I was unfrozen, you know. I’ve come to terms with how people speak by now.”

“Well get you.”

“Anyway,” Steve sighed heavily, “you can do the report and get Fury off your back now.”

Tony frowned and span around on his stool to face Steve. He brandished the soldering iron in front of him. “Wait, does that mean that you’ve…?” They both knew what Stark was implying.

“I did some research.” The captain admitted carefully. Most of his ‘research’ had been talking to someone from a helpline that Bruce had given him the number for. Apparently the doctor could smell shame on Steve and that evidently told him enough to warrant finding out about internalised homophobia helplines.

“I digress; have you come to a conclusion?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”

“Well isn’t that just dandy! Did you hear that, JARVIS? Apparently my workshop is also some kind of confessional!”

“Tony, I-,”

“I really don’t want to hear it, Cap’-,”

“I’m bisexual.”

“-so you can just close the, wait, what did you just say?”

“You heard me perfectly well.” Steve nodded at him curtly and took hold of the door handle, aiming to leave. “Mr Stark.”

“You know what? Get _out_ of here.” Suddenly it was Tony who was seething.

“The door isn’t opening.” Steve frowned and tugged, hard. He was surprised that the door didn’t pop off its hinges, the amount of force he was putting behind it, but then again it was Tony’s door and nothing of Tony’s could be expected to act normally.

“Open the damn door for him, JARVIS!” The AI still didn’t respond. “I am _so_ rewriting your code!” It was an empty threat, no matter how angry Tony was. Suddenly he realised what JARVIS was implying should happen. “…Oh. Oh, no, no, no, fuck you JARVIS, I am not doing what you’re thinking. No. There’s no way.” Stony silence was the only response.

“What is it he’s thinking you’ll do?” Steve asked, not a trace of his earlier apologetic caution prevailing.

Tony shot him a glare and turned back to his soldering. “I’m just going to go right back to working. You can… I dunno, play with my holograms until JARVIS lets us out.” He gestured at the computer table, which was actually a table which was a touch-screen computer. It lit up, suggesting that JARVIS actually was paying attention. Stark couldn’t see what was on it, but he assumed that it wouldn’t be too embarrassing.

It turned out that it was the schematics for an Iron Man gauntlet – it was unfinished, because he was currently in the process of designing a much lighter and manoeuvrable armour since he apparently found it so tremendously difficult to use the current model.

And wasn’t that a scary thought: Tony was literally getting too old to pilot his own suits. Of course, this was Tony Stark, and so he would continue to improve and adjust the suit so that he could use it probably up to his dying day. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that he was getting old and it scared him.

Steve seemed to catch onto the idea of manipulating a hologram very quickly and without discernible difficulty. He figured out how to expand the gauntlet into its separate parts and how to make changed to it and at some point ran a simulation, only to find that it didn’t have a hope in hell of it working like that. So he reset the model and spun it around, frowning at it.

“What were you trying to do?” Steve gestured at the floating glove, “It looks fine to me how it is.”

Stark took his sweet time in answering, making sure to finish what he was doing completely before turning around and pulling his goggles onto his forehead – having long since moved on from merely soldering. “I was trying to make it lighter.” Steve’s frown deepened as his confusion grew. “Not everyone can keep going forever, Rogers. The suit is damn heavy, even if it is powered by hydraulics systems, it’s still too heavy and too clunky for me to use efficiently anymore.”

Tony stood and made his way over to where Steve sat. He spun the hologram with practised ease and slid it onto his arm. “Didn’t think about doing this, did you?” His face remained expressionless. “You can run manual simulations like this.” A singular, computerised repulsor beam shot from Tony’s hand. It hit a target which popped up on the wall. “That’s a good idea, JARVIS; pull up some targets at various points around the room. Steve’s gonna try and hit them.”

Steve took to this idea too like a fish took to water. After a while he started being slightly more acrobatic about the positions he fired the fake blast from, and in increasingly quick succession. “That’s one hell of a lot easier than aiming my shield right.” He commented, looking at the hologram on his arm, impressed.

“I’m sure the hologram is.” Tony said from his work-bench, which he was sitting on. “I think we’d both agree that firing an actual repulsor is harder.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Tony frowned. “Why?”

“Because you’d never let me try this with an actual Iron Man gauntlet.” Steve explained, throwing the hologram away.

“Who said?”

“You said,” Steve mimicked Tony’s voice with scary accuracy. “‘If you ever touch my suit, Rogers, I’ll ram my boot up your ass.’”

“When was that, though?”

“Four years ago.”

“Exactly.” Tony hopped down onto the floor and walked over to his suits. He came back holding the right hand gauntlet for his heaviest – and therefore most reinforced – suit. “I can’t use this model anymore because it’s too heavy, so if you break it, it doesn’t matter too much, but I’d prefer you didn’t.” He warned, and gestured for Steve to hold his hand out.

If Steve was surprised by this turn of events he certainly kept it under wraps well – his facial expression didn’t change at all. If anything he looked curious about the metal glove. He raised his arm and Tony put it on him. It fit better than he’d expected, and was also easier to move than the captain had anticipated. “I can see why you find this clunky.” He remarked after moving his hand around a bit experimentally. “It’s heavy.”

“You don’t seem to be having a problem.”

“I’m a super-soldier.”

“I keep forgetting about that.” Tony huffed and stepped behind Steve to help the man manoeuvre the gauntlet appropriately. He made Rogers almost fully extend his arm, palm facing down. “Can we have a target please, JARVIS?” A simple, large target appeared on the opposite wall.

“To fire you’ve just got to flick your hand up and jolt your arm a little.” Tony grabbed the cord that was trailing from the gauntlet and undid one of the buttons on Steve’s shirt – which shouldn’t have made him feel as smug as it made him feel – to wrap the wire up near to his chest. “When you extend your arm fully you’ll give a hard tug on the wire and that fires the repul-”

He never got to finish his sentence, because the next second he found himself very firmly seated in the sink in the kitchen area with Steve on his lap, after having been caught off guard when Steve fired the repulsor without warning and both of them flying several metres through the air.

There was a moment of silence whilst they both took in what exactly had just happened, and then JARVIS chimed in, “Target hit, Captain Rogers.” And then they both burst out laughing. Proper, throw your head back and laugh until you can’t breathe and your sides hurt laughing. It was a first in a while for both of them.

Steve fell off the counter (and off Tony’s lap, which he was disappointed about) and continued to guffaw, but Tony was wedged in half under the faucet and no amount of wriggling was helping his situation, so he was still sitting there, giggling his ass off when Pepper walked in.

She stood in the doorway for a few moments, watching them both flounder for air to say anything, and then smiled and shook her head before walking away, a lot more calm than when she’d walked in.

“I take it that they’ve sorted it out?” Pepper asked JARVIS once she was definitely out of earshot.

“I would say so, Miss Potts. And Captain Rogers has given Mister Stark permission to share the circumstances of their disagreement a few weeks previously with SHIELD, although I hasten to add that I doubt a report ever will be filed.”

“Good. Would you phone Bruce and tell him that whatever he did, worked?”

“Certainly, Miss Potts. Will that be all?”

“Just make sure Tony’s happy, JARVIS, and I’m happy.” Pepper said, “And maybe he’ll stop whining about Steve not liking him now.”

“Perhaps.”

“I hope so.”

_#_


End file.
